Thank you for this post. Although it's about managed hives and ignores the apparent decrease in feral populations (there certainly seemed to be a lot more honeybees in crocus, dutch clover and residential flower gardens & lawns when I was a kid). I have been getting more and more vocal locally about the hijacking of the bee crisis by the environmentalists. If you google "What's killing the bees" the majority of articles are about pesticides, GMO and Monsanto. With headlines like: What's killing the honey bees? Mystery may be solved Pesticides appear to play a key role in killing off the honey bee population, according to a new study from Harvard University. Scientists discover what's killing the bees and it's worse than you thought But in a first-of-its-kind study <http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0070182#authcontrib>published today in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture have identified a witch's brew of pesticides and fungicides contaminating pollen that bees collect to feed their hives. Scientists may have pinpointed what's killing the bees: Yep, it's the pesticides Looks Like the Leftist Fringe Was Right About What's Killing the Bees After years of wait-and-see news reports, things are getting cinematic: The evil chemical corporation might be the bee murderer after all, but if it is, it's not going down without a fight. <https://news.vice.com/article/monsanto-s-herbicide-might-be-killing-farmers>Monsanto's herbicide might be killing farmers. Read more here. The sheer volume of articles submitted by environmentalists and their supporters seem to overwhelm the information channel. Locally, one of the famous "bees are dying" movies was held locally at the Carmel Indiana library by an environmentalist group. They advocated planting only native flowers (which is fine, particularly for native bees, but frankly, some of the best forage for honeybees is non-invasive plants from Europe, home of the honeybee). But then they went on and said, effectively, 'we must lobby the state legislature to fund light rail transit, to save the bees.' [Incidentally, the cost of a $2 ticket - each and every ticket - was estimated to need about $18 of tax money to break even]. The cell phone non-study, the Einstein quote, and the study by Chensheng Lu, and the PBS "Silence of the Bees" with the totally dishonest segment on China pears and chicken feathers (there are countless examples)... all take on a life where debunking is ineffective. When confronted with the data debunking their point, they act like promoting a falsehood is acceptable if it helps the final goal. Like everyone else, I'm cautious about pesticides. After all insecticides kill insects. But this hesitancy had, for a long time, made too cautious to speak out for better balance. Well, I'm speaking out now. At 12:00 AM 8/19/2014, Brian Ames <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >https://storify.com/BobTheBeekeeper/pollinator-concerns-yes-beepocalypse-no?utm_medium=sfy.co-twitter&utm_campaign=&utm_content=storify-pingback&awesm=sfy.co_gq6r&utm_source=t.co *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html